


Of Trepidation and Trade (or "I Love Lucy V2.0")

by Wreybies



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Dubious Consent, Episode: S02E06 Alternate Arc, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Drama, Hullen (Killjoys), M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Porn With Plot, RAC Agents, Reboot, Rewrite, Sex Pollen, Shameless Smut, The Quad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 10,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreybies/pseuds/Wreybies
Summary: Team Awesome-Force follows a lead to a source of untouched green plasma. It’s a trade deal, but the deal depends on how far D’avin is willing to go to get what they need.-------------------------------------------This is a partial rewrite of S02E06, "I Love Lucy", the one where Team Awesome-Force goes looking for unadulterated green plasma and find San Romwell, the guy with the asteroid spaceship and three female murderbots.  In this AU I shuffle the players a bit and let the story continue forward.  Some of the chapters are a little short because I've paid respect to the scene breaks as they happen in the original episode, whenever I could, and when it made sense. The story remains tightly canon... until it doesn't.  ^_^





	1. The Lead

The night air outside the Royale was misty and filled with the rich smells of this section of Old Town.Gun powder, ozone, burned grease, and an underlying melange of refuse in varying stages of decay. The smell of life and death in close quarters.

“Thanks, Mrgly. May you cut off Death's balls.” Pree ended the call, turned to Dutch, and slipped back into the Westerly variant of Quadish. “Oh, sugar, I got you a lead. Name's San Romwell. He's a collector of rare items from around the galaxy.” Pree thought for a moment on just how much disclosure was necessary regarding where this information had come from and decided that bare minimum would be best for the moment. “We did some business together.”

“He has plasma?” Dutch asked.

“Oh, my contact says San showed him something called ‘green magic’ when they were trading. San claimed it could control people. Mrgly thought it was a drug, but… I wonder.” Mrgly hadn’t been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the man could do things between the sheets that defied several laws of physics and were undoubtedly considered mortal sins in any well organized religion. A shudder of remembered lust crawled up Pree’s back.

   “How do we find Romwell?” asked Dutch, serious and intent. There was also just a whiff of annoyance Pree was picking up.

   “If I give you his tracking code, will you promise not to arrest him?” Pree asked.

   “No,” said Dutch, matter-of-factly. Her attention had been drawn back into the Royale.D’avin was at the bar, Sabine flirting sophomorically.

   Pree followed her eye into the bar. He saw what she saw and understood the feeling written on her lovely face. Pree loved Dutch fiercely, which was like loving a knife that was all edge and no handle. He’d been that way too at one time, and so had his friends and lovers. So beautiful, so fierce, so dangerous. They had made a religion of the idea that to die in one another’s arms, lips locked together, guns raining death on the enemy, was the only way to live. That’s how he knew. It was an intoxicating life, romantic, the gauge never less than red-lined, but it was a game for the young and those with nothing to lose. When you really did have something - or someone - to lose, you realized it wasn’t really a life, just an extravagant way to die.

   “It's okay to _dwant_ him,” Pree said.

   Dutch gave a look of confusion.

   “That's when you don't want someone, but you don't want anyone else to have them either.” Pree shrugged. “Figured we need a word for that.”

   Dutch was in no mood for catty banter. “All I _dwant_ right now is the plasma.”

   Pree wasn’t one to have his catty banter dismissed. “Yeah, kind of the opposite of what that means.” He sighed and let it go. “Romwell's passing through our system now. If you hurry, you can catch him. But he only trades, so you better take him something interesting.”


	2. Asteroid ship, baby!

“Hot damn, I love me an asteroid field!” Johnny was in his element. He wore his kid-in-a-candy-store grin.

“Fine, I admit it,” said Dutch. “You do have a feel for asteroids.”

“You find a warrant for Romwell?” asked D’avin in his best Daddy D’avin voice.

“No, none in the Quad, so I had Lucy check the J.” She turned to Johnny and D’avin in turn. “Found three hundred thirty-seven outstanding warrants for stolen goods.”

“Where does he find the time?” asked Johnny rhetorically.

“So we're going in blazing,” said D’avin switching from Daddy voice to soldier voice.

“Negative,” said Dutch. D’avin wasn’t the only one who could do a convincing soldier voice. “If he's evaded that many warrants, who knows what he's got up his sleeve?”

An asteroid rolled up into view from below them.Lucy’s hull scraped the tip of an outcropping.

“Woah, Johnny!” Dutch yelled, grabbing for the control console.

“Don't worry, I got this,” Johnny laughed, though it was clear the moment had caught him by surprise.He laced the ship through the oncoming asteroids, cavalier as always.

Dutch gave him a remonstrative glance.

“I want to get Romwell onto Lucy so we know we're _in control_.” She looked over at Johnny, adding weight to the double entendre in case he missed it. “And then we'll make a deal.”

Johnny checked the tracking code in Lucy’s navigation display panel. His eyebrows were drawn in confusion.

“Something wrong?” Dutch asked.

“I don't get it,” Johnny replied, the confusion unabated. “I’m following the tracking code. We should be looking at Romwell's ship, but all I see is big rocks.”

“Some kind of transparency shield?” D’avin offered. Johnny rolled his eyes. He just loved when D’av tried to use big words.

“Lucy, hail on all frequencies,” Dutch said to the ship.

“ _We are already being hailed_ ,” replied Lucy in her unflappably polite tone.

A swarthy man with large eyes, dramatic eyebrows, and an affable grin materialized on the communications screen.He held two fingers to his temple.

“Are you Dutch?” he asked.

Dutch took control of the conversation. “If you've been expecting us, Mr. Romwell, I assume you know what we've come for.”

“I do,” he said, a wide smile showing bright teeth. “And I'm very excited to find out what you've brought me in exchange.”

Johnny and Dutch traded a glance. “A world of wonders,” answered Dutch.

The man’s eyes widened noticeably, pupils dilating in anticipation. “Well, the price of admission to my ship is a trade.”

“What ship?” whispered Johnny.

Romwell leaned into the camera. “Are you game?” he asked. It was clearly a dare.

“I am,” answered Dutch. Men and their games. Would they ever learn?

“Then come aboard,” responded Romwell, unfazed. It was clear to Dutch that this was a man who enjoyed the game as much as the result.

Through the forward view screen of the ship, a large, rounded asteroid in front of them suddenly had a bay-door sliding open.

“Yes,” Johnny said in appreciation.

D’avin gave him a look that said the moment was lost on him.

“Asteroid.”Johnny gestured expansively at the view screen. “Spaceship.”

Dutch rolled her eyes.

Jonny waved her off. _Cretins_.

“Lucy, take us in before Johnny wets his pants,” Dutch said in performative boredom.

   Johnny wasn’t going to let their lack of appreciation spoil the moment for him.He giggled as Lucy slid into the docking bay and said, “Honey, I'm home.”


	3. The Collection

 

Lucy’s boarding ramp lowered and Dutch, Johnny, and D’avin exited into the large docking bay.

“Well, this looks familiar,” said Dutch, taking in the interior geography of the asteroid.

“Hexagonal basalt,” Johnny observed, in professor mode. “A volcanic planet blew it all over the J a billion years ago.”

“Built his ship inside of an asteroid full of photonic crystals,” noted D’avin, stating the obvious.

Obvious or not, Johnny had to give credit where credit was due. “Genius. Gives him enough energy for a lifetime.”

“And then some.” Romwell approached the trio with a trio of his own. “Three Killjoys, and not one trying to arrest me. That's new.”

Dutch took in his attire. A dovetail coat with sharp lines and crisp tailoring, a wide golden silk belt and dark trousers of equally soft, sumptuous fabric. In all, rather overdressed for the occasion. It was familiar territory for Dutch. Either someone who _was_ important, or someone who wanted you to _think_ he was important. When it came to rogues and men who aspired to iconoclasm, it could be either or both.

“Hello,” said the three women who accompanied him.It was impossible to miss the dead sound in their voices, the overly perfect synchronicity of their delivery.They sounded mechanical. Creepy.

Dutch was as perturbed as Johnny and D’avin, but she wasn’t going to let that keep her from sounding anything less than cool and competent.

“We're looking for a special green plasma,” she said.

“Yes, I think I have what you're looking for,” he replied, still speaking to Dutch, but his attention was undeniably diverted. It was D’avin who he eyed.The man was riveted.

I'm so glad you've come,” he continued. “I’d almost given up on finding an interesting trade in the Quad.”

D’avin couldn’t remember the last time he felt so undressed, so groped without being touched. His head pulled back and his chin tipped in just a fraction of an inch.

“Such a sweaty, little armpit of a place,” Romwell said to Dutch, and then back to D’avin, “No offense.”

Dutch and Johnny traded a glance, which D’avin conspicuously avoided sharing.

 

* * *

 

Romwell led them through a winding corridor carved into the naked stone of the asteroid. Photonic crystal bathed the corridor in a soft, continuous glow. The corridor led to a chamber wherein uncountable metallic rectangular keys glittered from the ceiling like icicles. “Welcome to my collection,” he said, gesturing at a device of metal rods surrounding a circular base in the middle of the room, the purpose of which was completely opaque. 

“You collect keys?” asked D’avin, sorry he’d brought the attention back to himself.

“Here it is,” said Romwell, plucking one of the keys from the ceiling.He approached D’avin, brandishing the key. “I couldn't fit everything into one small asteroid, so...

It was Johnny who finished the sentence. “A molecular printer?”

Romwell traced the edge of the key slowly down D’avin’s chest and stomach. “Amazing, right?”

It was becoming uncomfortably clear to D’avin what the nature of this trade might entail.

As if reading his mind, Romwell said, “That trade cost me.” He turned his attention back to the device in the center of the room. “But now I scan whatever I acquire into the system, and everything's available at the turn of a key.”

Romwell slipped the key into a receptacle and several waldo arms within the cage of tubes came to life. “Here we go,” he said.

Beams of energy from several of the waldos converged on a point in the center of the platform within the device. A glass vial filled with what appeared to be green plasma assembled from the bottom up.

“This is awesome.” Johnny’s tone was a hushed reverence at the level of technology on display.

“Beautiful,” said Romwell, pickup up the vial, glancing from it to D’avin.

Johnny took the key from the receptacle.It was as simple and plain as one could imagine.Just a rectangle of metal that thinned to a smaller tongue that slid into the device.Other than that, there were no markings, nothing to distinguish it from the thousands of others hanging from the ceiling.

Romwell plucked the key from Johnny's hand with a remonstrative cluck of his tongue.

“Just looking.” Johnny held up both hands in a gesture of innocent curiosity.

Romwell replaced the vial on the platform, slipped the key back into the device and said, “Now you see it.” The same beams of energy dematerialized the vial into nothingness. “Now you don’t.”

The man’s attention shifted back to Dutch. “Your turn, I believe.”

She gave him a demure, servile smile and gestured from him to lead the way.

“Lucy, prepare for company,” Johnny said, knowing Lucy was tracking every word.


	4. The Trade

 

Johnny watched nervously as Romwell handled his priceless comic book.Johnny fantasized several elaborately impractical ways of killing the man if he handled it with anything less than religious reverence.

"Captain Apex,” Romwell said appreciatively.“But the Velubian princess storyline is so derivative.And this isn't even a first edition.”

Johnny’s eyes widened at the sacrilege.

Romwell dropped the comic book on the table like it was nothing.Johnny surged forward. D’avin held him back.

Romwell continued down the table of treasures, picking up a knife. “A Rossi Naz,” he said.

“She's the premium knife maker in the J,” Dutch said with pride.

“But I have fifty just like it,” he rebuffed. “Twenty-two inscribed to me personally.” He placed the knife back on the table, instantly forgotten. “What about over here?” he said, continuing on.

“I have fifty of these, two million of those,” Johnny quipped in a nasal mocking tone, quietly enough that only D’avin would hear. “And that issue of Captain Apex? Totally a collector's item.”

“Yeah, and what is up with his assistants?” D’avin asked, looking over at the strange women.

“His assistants?What’s up with him eyeballing your junk every five minutes?” Johnny curled a ribald grin at his brother.

“Dude, stop,” D’avin reproached.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed,” Johnny replied.

“Of course I’ve noticed.Everyone’s noticed. Just please stop talking about it.”

From the earpiece in Johnny’s ear, Lucy said, “ _John, I’m sensing an internal scan_.”

“Are they trying to hack our system?” he asked her.

“ _They seem to be cataloging all personal effects_ ,” she replied.

“Well not like ‘under the mattress’ personal, right?” Johnny asked.

D’avin took the opportunity to throw a snarky look his brother’s way, now that he seemed to be the one worrying.

“Nothing for me here,” Romwell said to Dutch.

She sighed in exasperation.

“Let's see what else you have.” Romwell continued out from the ship hold and into the room where Johnny ‘did science’ and other nerdy things.Romwell spied the mossipede in its glass container.

“Ooo. I haven't seen one of these in a really long time.” His tone had gone from bored disinterest to piqued curiosity.

“You've seen a mossipede?” Johnny asked incredulously.

Mossipede, right,” Romwell replied as though speaking to a simpleton. “They... camouflage themselves. The indigenous people of N'gwella use them as guard animals.” He turned his attention back to the crew. “They're very bitey, if I remember correctly.

“Yeah, you got _that_ right,” said D’avin.Johnny looked at him having heard the double meaning.

“Done. I'll trade.” Romewell beamed a look of smug satisfaction.

“No, no, no. Not done,” Johnny said, the idea of giving up the mossipede and what he could learn from it seemed like a bad deal.

“Johnny,” Dutch said in warning.

“Of course, I'll need to hear the real story of where you got it. It's the story behind the object I'm after,” said Romwell.He eyed Johnny directly. "Obviously, it means a lot to you.”

“Yes. It's a scientific specimen critical to my research,” Johnny said to Romwell, but looked at Dutch, trying to get her to understand the importance.

“Your pet is also self-healing,” she countered. “Cut it in half. Keep one, trade one”

“You didn't have to tell _him_ that,” Johnny hissed at Dutch.

 

* * *

 

Johnny cut the mossipede in half.It hissed and squealed in distress, but Johnny knew both ends would heal into separate individuals in short order.

“Look, a deal's a deal,” Dutch said in her flatest tone. “Let's get what we came for and go.”

Romwell took a syringe that was on the worktable and began extracting mossipede green from his half of the creature.

“What are you doing?” asked Johnny, deeply suspicious of the other man’s motives.

Romwell closed the lid on the container in which he’d placed his half of the mossipede and held up the syringe filled with green.

“Oh, you can't be serious.” Johnny didn’t know how the other man could hold a poker face as though this was remotely a fair bargain.

“Plasma. Trade complete,” Romwell said smugly.

“Oh, that is so clever,” Johnny responded, emptying out that day’s quota of snark. “But you can't trade me what I already had.”

“Actually, you traded for half of what you already had. So this half is mine.”Johnny didn’t think the man could sound more smug than he already had, but it seemed there was no upper limit to his smug-dial.

“We were trading for the plasma in the vial.” Dutch was now deeply annoyed.

“Should have been more specific,” Romwell said to Dutch, and then to Johnny, “If you could just wrap up my box for me.”

“How about we wrap up your box?” D’avin said in cold hostility.

Romwell’s nostrilled flared at D’avin’s words.

“What?” said Johnny to D’avin, the latter suddenly hearing the mildly lewd possibility in his words.

“Enough bullshit, Romwell.” Dutch’s tone was exhausted. “There are over three hundred warrants out for you. But I won't invoke them if you give us the plasma in your collection.” Dutch stepped up to him with masculine determination. This was the way men spoke without speaking. It was about physical space and domination. It was such a simple, almost canine dynamic. And it had the intended effect. Romwell drew his hands in and backed up. “We get what we want,” Dutch continued. “And you get to leave my ship.”

Romwell sighed and turned from her, the initial instinctive reaction under control. He placed the syringe on the table as if admitting defeat. “I was really hoping you'd be interesting. But I guess you're just another sore loser who doesn't know how to play the game.

“What, the asshole game?” Johnny asked.

Dutch's eyes never let go their hold of Romwell’s. “Fine, we _won't_ do this the easy way.”

There was a high-pitched ringing of metal compartments sliding open, only these compartments were in the legs of the three female assistants Romwell had with him.Weapons were stowed in the compartments.

Dutch pulled her weapon on Romwell, but kept one eye on the female assistants, who each pulled their respective weapons in perfect unison. 

Dutch new she was outgunned.

Romwell disarmed her.

“Androids?” said D’avin.

“Technically gynoids,” Johnny corrected. “But nobody says that. These aren't even legal.”

“Actually, everything is legal somewhere,” said Romwell as he went to each of them, collecting their weapons. "Which turns out to be extremely convenient for me.”Still holding the gun he’d taken from Dutch, he adopted a faux-chipper tone and said, “Off the ship, please.” He gestured to the exit.

Dutch, Johnny, and D’avin hesitated, looking to one another.

Romwell’s chipper tone evaporated when he said, “Now.”

Johny sighed defeat, removed his gloves, and used the move to surreptitiously pick up his communicator.He tapped the screen where it said “sync” and slipped it into his pocket as they exited Lucy.

As they walked back through the ship hold where Dutch had arranged the wares she had hoped to trade with Romwell the trader, turned Romwell the fraudster, she said, “This isn't exactly good for repeat business.”

“You're the one who raised the stakes.” It sounded like a rehearsed line, one said countless other times. “And now you'll have to trade for your freedom. With this.” Romwell placed two fingers to his temple and said, “Bring.”

The blond assistant pushed D’avin into the middle of their grouping.Romwell eyed him appreciatively.D’avin’s eyes went wide. What had been a concern had become fact.

Dutch turned to Romwell, her voice cold as space. “We're not trading anything, or _anyone_.”

Romwell’s mask of variable moods dropped completely and he addressed Dutch as though he were one of the Nine speaking to the kitchen staff. “Sorry, I wasn't clear. This trade is non-negotiable. D’avin comes with me, his safety secure. You and your little friend with the blue eyes will be added to my collection.Permanently. You’ll make an excellent trade sometime in the future, and your scruffy sidekick is just a bonus.” He ran his hand down D’avin’s neck and chest. “This one’s the real prize.”

Dutch spun with lightning speed, and attempted to disarm one of the assistants.She encountered impossible resistance in the assistant’s arm.She punched her in the gut and was rewarded with a metallic thunk and the possibility of a broken hand.

“Ah, damn. Those are some abs,” Dutched hissed through the pain. The assistant grabbed Dutch by the throat and choked her. The sound that escaped Dutch’s throat was alarming.

“Let her go or else I'll kick your testicles into your eyeholes,” D’avin seethed.

Romwell raised his eyebrows. “I’ll bet you could.” He gestured to the other assistants. “But... the ladies default to kill mode when I'm attacked, so... Do you care to test the system?

Dutch continued to make sounds no person should ever make, her skin purpling under the pressure.Johnny looked at D’avin in a panic.

“All right, I'll come,” D’avin said, his jaw clenched. “You can have me and my story, for both of them.”

Romwell eyed him for a moment then nodded.He walked to where Dutch was still in the clutches of the robo-assistant and touched his temple.The robot released Dutch and she gasped deeply.He bent down to make sure she was okay.She nodded that she was fine, though she said nothing.

“After you.” Romwell gestured to D’avin.

D’avin glared at him.Then he looked to Dutch whose eyes were still watering and red from having been choked, but she was breathing fine now. Last he looked at Johnny. The look on Johnny’s face was angry and confused and worried. D’avin nodded almost imperceptibly at his brother who returned the nod a second later.

“Come, come. Let’s get a move on.” Romwell turned to the blond who had been choking Dutch and said, “Bring that as well.”

He pointed to Dutch’s sitara.


	5. Connection

“Your friend must come from a wealthy family to possess such a rare sitara.” Romwell eyed the instrument in his hands with pleasure. He led D’avin into what appeared to be an apartment, littered with with an eclectic array of objects.

“My own living quarters are somewhat more humble,” Romwell lied as they entered the rooms.

“Looks like an antique store got drunk and threw up in an asteroid. So how does this trade work?” D’avin knew already. He just wanted to hear the man say it, to be sure that how he felt afterwards, what he _did_ afterwards, was warranted, no guilt that maybe he had just wanted a simple chat.

“I’m guessing you wanna hear my story?” D’avin hoped he’d managed to make that sound somewhat sultry and alluring.

“Actually, I want to see it with you.” Romwell held out an unusually shaped object. It looked almost like a gourd. “This is one of my recent trades. You're going to love it. It creates a temporary link between your visual cortex and mine. I'll be able to experience the story you tell. Like a shared hypnosis.”

Romwell held it further out, entreating D’avin to place his hand on it.He did and at first it was just cool and smooth. Then there was a sensation that ran up his arm, his neck, into his head. The room swam in and out of focus.

Romwell’s eyes were rolling all over the place. D’avin assumed his own were doing the same given what he was seeing.

“You feel that?” Romwell slurred. “Trippy, isn't it?”

Whatever self-control he had employed previously dropped away. The look on the man’s face was pure lascivious lust.

“Now, tell me about that instrument and how you met Dutch,” he said.

“I don’t know anything about it other than it’s something usually only royalty can get their hands on.” D’avin didn’t know how Romwell had suddenly gotten so close. He had a vague sensation and memory that he could see himself through the other man’s eyes. He felt Romwell’s desire burn through himself, as though it was his own.

“That’s the feedback loop you’re feeling,” said Romwell.“Not much point lying to me now. I’m in your head and you’re in mine.”

Romwell’s hand slipped up D’avin’s shirt. D’avin felt its warmth and he also felt how smooth his own skin felt to Romwell. He didn’t know his own skin was that smooth, that silky.

He took the hand in his own and guided it upwards, and felt the hand on his chest, the heat of his chest in Romwell’s hand, the strength of his own hand on Romwell’s wrist.

“Be careful,” Romwell warned. “It’s easy to get lost in the loop. Like standing between two mirrors, the reflections repeat infinitely.”

Lips were on D’avin’s lips, and his own on the other’s. He let it happen, passively at first, then tentatively kissed back, his tongue exploring the other man’s mouth. He took Romwell’s head in his hands and breathed him in, kissing him for all he was worth. The lust that brought his cock to aching hardness was at least partly Romwell’s, but it would be a lie to say it wasn’t partly his own too.

How long ago, how far away, had he shared a kiss like this with another man? A boy, really. They had both been so young, only just having crossed into manhood. Blond hair, green eyes, a body honed from summers and winters spent toiling on a farm, hard, strong, desirable.

Romwell pulled away, pushing D’avin back.

“And here I thought I was going to be your first,” he said. “Never mind the story about Dutch. The young man with green eyes and blond hair, the hayseed. Tell me that story.”

D’avin was breathing hard. He was angry, he was aroused, and this story was one he hadn’t told anyone, ever. Johnny knew some of it, but the little he did know had made him leave it alone out of respect. “It doesn’t have a happy ending,” he said.

“Good stories never do." Romwell took D’avin’s hand and led him to an alcove wherein there was a large bed. “Let’s get comfortable.”


	6. Sterilization

Dutch and Johnny were unceremoniously led to a utilitarian storage room.Johnny noticed some rather randomly located fruit on a shelf.

“Hey, are these Leithian Vale peaches?” he asked.

“Who the hells cares,” said Dutch.

“Sorry, just something D’avin mentioned on the way here.” He put the fuzzy globe of a fruit back on the shelf.

The brunette robot said, “You must be naked for sterilization.”

Dutch glared at her. No point in being polite to a tin can. “I took a shower this morning,” she quipped.

It seemed the robot felt the same same way about politesse.It grabbed Dutch’s shirt by the bottom hem and abruptly yanked up.

“Okay, slow down.” Dutch grabbed the shirt and pulled it back in place.

“Stop talking Be naked.” This was the red-head robot.

“Hey, cut it out.” Dutch struggled with the brunette who continued to try to undress her. “You got a plan, right?” she said to Johnny.

Johnny winced. “Yeah, but it involves you getting the shit kicked out of you.”

“Again?” The game of shirt-up, shirt-down continued.


	7. The Story: Part 1

“My story starts far away from here.On a planet called Telen.” D’avin’s shirt was somewhere on the floor, Romwell’s hand tracing circles across his chest and stomach. The dual inputs of his own body and the reverb of Romwell’s biofeedback were unabated and just as discombobulating as before. His chest, those fingers; those fingers, his chest. He touched and was touched. He felt and was felt. It was dizzying.

“Sounds quaint,” said Romwell.

“It’s a shithole,” retorted D’avin.

“I see mountains and rivers, lakes and fields in your head, D’avin.Doesn’t seem like a shithole to me.”

“Even the nicest hotels all have a toilette,” D’avin replied.He looked over at the sitara Romwell had placed on a table just outside the bed alcove. “Dutch comes from wealth. If things had played out differently, you’d be call her _your grace_ or _your highness_.”

“I know,” said Romwell. “I’ve met many graces and highnesses in my day. There’s a look, a bearing, a posture to it that can never be completely erased.Your friend has it. The sitara is merely confirmation of the obvious.But that’s a story for another time. I want the other story, you and the blond farmboy.”

“I was getting to that,” D’avin reached for Romwell’s hand.He meant to pull it away from his skin, instead, for reasons impossible to follow, he moved it lower, to the skin just between his navel and the waist of his pants.

Romwell grinned a cheshire grin. “Go on,” he said.

D’avin reclined back into the mattress. His body was not his own. His intentions were traitors. His mouth, a turncoat. He wanted to squeeze the life out of this man and to fuck him senseless at the same time, both desires riding the same channel, the same two-way connection between them. Nothing was hidden. Romwell knew he felt this way, felt it with him, and it only ramped up the feedback.

Romwell’s hand slid under D’avin’s pants, brushed against the head of his cock. The sensation was a blaze of touch-and-be-touched.D’avin drew in a deep breath and felt his vision narrow in at the margins. Romwell drew his hand away, sat up, removed his jacket, his shirt, leaned back down, head propped up in one hand, elbow to the bed, scorching skin of his chest against D’avin’s shoulder.

“You were saying?” He was toying with D’avin.

D’avin took several deep breaths.“I was saying that it was a shithole because we were dirt poor. We had nothing.”

“Poverty and misery don’t always go hand in hand,” said Romwell.

“That’s an easy observation to make if you’ve never known poverty,” replied D’avin. “Regardless, it was just Johnny and me and my dad, and my dad wasn’t worth the air he breathed.”

“Ah, where would be without our tragic childhoods?” Romwell said wistfully.

“Fuck you,” D’avin hissed.

“Absolutely, but finish the story first.” Romwell’s hand brushed the arc of D’avin’s cock, clearly visible through his pants and the wave of replayed sensation threatened to wash him away again.

Another moment to gather his wits and he continued. “His name was Brenn.His family lived in the next valley over. They had a farm there. Grain and some cattle."

“I envy him,” said Romwell.D’avin wasn’t sure if that was sarcasm or genuine. The connection said there was a mix of both. “So did you love this boy?” Romwell asked.

“First, trade me something about you. Fair is fair.” D’avin shifted so he could more easily reach Romwell. 

Two could play the game. He pinched one of Romwell’s nipples just to the point of shared agony and then released. Romwell gasped in pain and then his eyes flew open, his pupils dilated to black orbs. D’avin reached for his cock, felt the heat of it through the silky material of Romwell’s pants, gripped it, stroked it. Romwell’s eyes rolled up and fluttered.D’avin released him.

“Do you have a story in mind?” Romwell asked, breathily.

“Tell me where you got the plasma.”

Romwell seemed disappointed at the question. Perhaps he was hoping for something more intimate, more private. “Got it on a distant planet. My home planet. From some visitors who arrived when I was a young man. Their ship was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Organic.”Romwell’s hand was back on D’avin, caressing the skin of his flank. “Almost like they'd grown it instead of built it. I had just started to collect…” His hand strayed further down D’avin’s side. “…and they truly had a world of wonders. The most wondrous was the liquid that ran their ships.” His hand was on D’avin’s thigh and heading for more dangerous territory.

“The plasma,” said D’avin.

“I traded for it, and I left my planet. I've never been back."

“There's more to that story,” D’avin moved his hand away, again.

“And more to yours. Finish it.” Romwell’s nostrils were flared with lust.


	8. Murderbots Galore

The red-head robot addressed the brunette robot directly. “Prepare the scanner.”

The brunette headed towards a cylindrical alcove in the back of the storage room.It was lit from both bottom and top.

“That's a scanner?” asked Johnny, rhetorically.

“Seriously, you're gonna make copies of us?” Dutch asked annoyed at the situation, but thankful that the undressing game was diverted for the moment.

The red-head robot said, “You will be reduced to your constituent elements, and added to the collection as a molecular blueprint. You will no longer exist in your current form.”

That did not sound appealing at all to Dutch. “Yeah, sorry, I've got plans later that involve _not_ being dead.”

Johnny put on his game-face and said, “Go!”

Dutch took a running start at the brunette, hoping to knock her down.It worked, but the brunette got her in a leg-lock at the waist.

Dutch groaning in pain. “My baby maker!”

Johnny put the red-head in a headlock, but she elbowed him in the gut with a force that felt like a hydraulic ram.

Dutch tried several different moves to break from the steel grip of the leg-lock the brunette had her in, “How's the plan going?” she yelled at Johnny.

“I’m working on it,” replied Johnny, his face currently smashed into the surface of a shelf.

The brunette got her hands around Dutch’s throat, but Dutch just managed to get her hands in between first. “Worst hand job ever,” she growled at the murderbot. Time to call things by their real names. 

The red-head twisted Jonny’s wrist to get him to the floor, but not before he attached his communicator to her back and tapped the screen. “Yeah, but she dips like a son of a bitch.”

The red-head changed course, heading for the brunette, grabbing her by the head and twisting once to each side with a scraping sound of metal and fizzle and pop of electrical connections being severed.

Dutch crawled out from under the murderbot’s now-lifeless form and gasped. “Took you long enough.”

“You try hacking tech that doesn't even exist in the Quad. Ah! You're lucky I can mod that interface.” Some of Johnny’s plucky nerd-boy bravado had returned to his voice.

“So I guess I should thank you,” huffed Dutch.

“ _You're welcome. I estimated six seconds until cerebral hemorrhage._ ” The red murderbot suddenly had a familiar voice.

“Is that Lucy?” asked Dutch, incredulous.

“Oh, sort of a stripped-down version. More like an app,” Johnny replied.

“ _I don't have all my logic and database functions, but I seem to have opposable thumbs._ ” Lucy-Bot flexed her thumbs in demonstration.

“It is extremely weird hearing your voice come out of that bot,” said Johnny.

Lucy-Bot dropped her voice to a masculine baritone. “ _Do you prefer this module?_ ”

“No! God, no. Just be Lucy.” Johnny’s face squirreled up in consternation.

“ _I blocked San Romwell's neural control of these mobile computing units. I can hold them off for_ _approximately five point five minutes,_ ” Lucy-Bot reported.

“Good,” said Dutch. “Let's get D’avin and get off this rock.


	9. The Story - Part 2

“My dad was a drunk,” continued D’avin. “But he’d use whatever he could get his hands on, so sometimes it was a combination of alcohol and who-knows-what. Brenn’s father let me work on their farm in trade for grain and meat, but he knew my family, knew that the Jaqobis name meant trouble.”

“And you charmed your way into his son’s pants, so in a way he was right, wasn’t he?” Romwell passed the tip of his tongue suggestively over his lips.

“Wrong. It was Brenn who made the first move. I wasn’t looking for that. I wasn’t even thinking it, but it happened one day when his father had gone into town.”

Romwell pulled D’avin closer, their faces almost touching, everything else definitely touching. “Continue,” he said.

“It was the hay barn,” said D’avin.

“How cliché,” said Romwell.

“Do you want the story or not?” D’avin gripped Romwell’s pelvis, grinding into him.

Romwell got up and slipped out of his pants, the hard curve of his cock jutting up from a thatch of dark hair. He nodded for D’avin to do the same.D’avin complied, deeply satisfied to see that he easily outsized Romwell.Romwell didn’t seem to care about the comparison. He slid back into the bed, pulling D’avin against him, then on top of him.

“Yes,” Romwell sighed. “I want it.” He spread his legs and grabbed D’avin’s ass, pulling him in, his demand was obvious. “While you tell me the story, of course.”

D’avin hitched Romwell’s legs into the crook of each of his elbows, leveraging him up, bringing the head of his cock to Romwell’s entry.

“I told you this story doesn’t have a happy ending,” said D’avin, pressing in.

Romwell bared teeth at the pain and discomfort of taking D’avin’s cock, the only lubricant in play being the copious precum issuing from D’avin.

“Then make the fuck as hard as the story.”

D’avin crushed Romwell in a wide, passionate kiss.He drove his cock with no thought for mercy. Romwell cried his agony into D’avin’s mouth, but D’avin didn’t relent. He felt the pain as much as Romwell did. It blinded him, but behind it was ecstasy. It was exactly what Romwell wanted.

The pain abated and gave way to only pleasure, to the heart-stopping presence of D’avin’s heavy cock pressing into Romwell, filling him, up against that knot of infinite pleasure, the one so few men are willing to acknowledge. 

D’avin broke the kiss and resettled Romwell into his lap so that he could get as deep as possible, and still recount the tale he had to tell.He plumbed him languidly, long-stroking him slowly and deeply as he spoke.

“Brenn had seen the bruise on my face, the way my eye was swollen. It wasn't the first time. He knew how it had happened. He didn’t need to ask. He came into the hay barn and brought me a compress to put on my eye. I refused him at first, told him I didn’t need it, it didn’t hurt. That was all lies, of course. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, and it stung worse that he was drawing attention to my shame.”

Romwell writhed beneath D’avin. For every slow thrust D’avin gave him, he rose in response, sheathing D’avin to the hilt over and again.

Suddenly Jonny’s voice was in D’avin’s ear, “D’avin, Romwell sicced his bots on us. Buy us some time, we'll find a way out.”

D’avin almost laughed at the irony. He was already doing that.

D’avin continued. “Brenn was like his father. Quiet, determined. You didn’t tell either of them _no_ , even if I had been in a position where I could. He waited until I was done lying about the pain, until I was done holding back the shame of a father who beat me and treated me like garbage. I was crying. I don’t think I’d ever cried in front of anyone since I was a baby. I had learned to hold my tears back from my father because that’s what he wanted to see, so fuck him. He could have nothing and like it.”

Rommels legs wrapped around D’avin, wanting more, needing more. Not just the fuck, but the story as well, which was playing out in his mind as clearly as in D’avin’s.The loop made it impossible to know where one person ended and the other started.

 _Fuck you_ , thought D’avin.

 _You are_ , he heard Romwell’s response in his head.

“Brenn wrapped me in his arms. I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to pull away, but Brenn was strong, really strong. He held me and leaned my head into his shoulder. He whispered in my ear. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You’re with me. I would never hurt you.’"

“I’d forgotten to even dream of it anymore,” whispered Romwell. “To be held like that.”

“The way it's supposed to be,” D’avin responded, looking him dead in the eye, driving in hard, watching the man gasp his pleasure.


	10. The Fine Print

 

Lucy-Bot marched them through endlessly winding corridors.

“Are you sure this is a short cut?” Johnny asked.

“ _The schematics of the asteroid are in a primitive format, but it should…_ ”

“Unit one! Why have you gone offline?” Murderbot Blond and Murderbot Brunette appeared from around a bend in the corridor, weapons at the ready.

 

* * *

 

Johnny’s voice was in D’avin’s ear again. It was profoundly disturbing to have his brother talking to him while he was fucking this man. “D’avin, I can't stop these bots. Make Romwell call them off.”

“Don’t stop,” demanded Romwell when D’avin had stopped moving, stopped talking.

“I don’t know how long he held me. I don’t know how long I cried in his arms. I don’t know when he started kissing me. I don’t know why I wanted it, but I did. I just needed someone to be kind to me, and he was, and gods, I was so grateful and thankful. We lay down in the hay for a long time and he didn’t try anything else. He just looked at me and held me. It was me who took it further. It was me who took his shirt off. It was me who asked if it was okay, if this was what he wanted.”

Tears welled in D’avin’s eyes. These next words were his most precious memory of that time.

“He said to me, ‘I just want you to be okay. I’m your friend and I love you. I’m here for you, however you need me.’ We made love there in the hay, on his father’s farm, on this shithole planet where no one gave a fuck about me. Except for Brenn.” D’avin’s tears spilled over, and incongruously, bizarrely, in that same moment he felt his climax rise. It hit hard and sharp. It rebounded through Romwell who screamed into D’avin’s ear, the hot jets of his seed scalding them both, stomach to stomach.

It would have gone on forever, the device connecting their minds sending it back and forth until they both died. It was Romwell who pushed D’avin away, breaking the physical contact, letting the feedback fade and subside.

“You've shown me something I can never have,” said Romwell. “Such a beautiful friend. A happy ending.”

D’avin panted and tried to get his breath. “I’ve told you already, it’s not a happy ending.

D’avin reached for the device that had created the neural link between them. It was on the small table next to the bed. He smashed it against the wall at the head of the bed. A static display of broken images, glitched sensations, frozen words, stalled tastes and sounds, all flashed and disappeared.

   “What happened?” Romwell said in bemusement.

The neural link was broken.

D’avin’s hands closed around Romwell’s throat. He had forced that story out of D’avin, and now he would have the whole of it, and all it entailed. 

“Here’s how the story ends, asshole. Brenn’s father came home and found us in the hay barn. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He told me to leave and never come back. I don’t know how my dad found out, but he did, and he beat me so badly that my brother went back to their farm to get help. They helped me, but I never saw Brenn again. I don’t know where they sent him, but he was gone.”

   D’avin squeezed with every ounce of strength he had.He squeezed until the man’s face turned red, then purple. He squeezed and squeezed and wondered who was screaming so loudly. He realized it was himself. He squeezed until Romwell didn’t look like Romwell. He looked like D’avin’s father, back on Telen, the way he looked after a few bottles and a few snorts or a few injections, the way he looked when D’avin was small and weak and could only imagine having the strength and the balls to fight back.

Romwell struggled pitifully.

D’avin yelled into his face, “You wanna’ trade?! Here’s your trade! Should’a checked the fine print first, asshole!”

With one final jerk of his leg, Romwell stopped moving, the light going out of his eyes.

D’avin let him go, waited to be sure the job was done. He felt for a pulse. Nothing.

Activating his earpiece, he said, “John, Dutch, you okay?”

 

* * *

 

“Yeah, we're okay,” said Dutch.

Johnny added, “We're having an awkward moment with Romwell's bots, but whatever you did, it worked. They powered down.”

They approached the now-dormant murderbots.

“ _I detected an interruption in neural flow from the command source,_ ” Lucy-Bot stated.

 

* * *

 

“I killed Romwell. We need to print that plasma.” D’avin rifled through the man’s clothing, searching for the key that would give them access to the green goo.He found nothing.

“He must've put the key back on the wall,” he informed Johnny and Dutch through the earpiece. “I’m going back to the room to try and find it.”

“Look, D’avin, there must be a thousand keys in there,” Johnny warned.

“I think I saw where he took it from. Go and open the doors to the landing bay so we can get out of here. Meet me on Lucy.” He collected his clothing, shoving legs and arms into pants and shirt.

“On it,” confirmed Johnny.


	11. Resurrection

Lucy-Bot ran down the corridor at full tilt.

“Lucy! Stop!” yelled Johnny.

She came to a dead stop and turned. “ _Is there a problem?_ ” she asked?

“Yeah,” gasped Johnny, out of breath.

“We're not machines,” Dutch finished for him.

“ _You have other good qualities,_ ” Lucy-Bot noted.

They both rolled their eyes at her.

“How far is the control room?” Johnny panted out.

“ _Thirteen meters,_ ” Lucy-Bot answered.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Dutch said.

“ _You can bore through this rock wall._ ” Lucy-Bot gestured to a spot on the wall. “ _If you have a xenon laser with a four-meter aperture._ ”

Dutch loved Lucy, but right now, just a little less. “Damn, I left my xenon laser in my other pants.”

“ _In that case, we'll have to follow the tunnels one point eight kilometers._ ”

* * *

 

D’avin had tried countless keys in the molecular printer, none of them led to the vial of green plasma. Uncounted other random items, most of which were unknown to D’avin, appeared and disappeared in the machine. Once, a huge spider that could roar.

“This is hopeless,” he said under his breath. There was no way he was going to find the right key. They were identical and indistinguishable, one from the next.

In vain he eyed the key he still held in his hand. It was as blank as the rest, but he noticed his own thumbprint on its smooth metal surface. 

That gave him an idea. Prints would mean DNA.

He pulled out his communicator and gave it a command. “Scan for DNA. John Jaqobis.”

“ _Negative_ ,” it replied.

He held the scanner up to a section of the wall of keys. “ _Negative_ ,” it replied again. No matter. His brother had held the key to the plasma in his hand. His DNA was somewhere in here. At least this way he could scan large areas for it. Much faster.

 

* * *

 

“Why are you stopping?” Dutch asked Lucy-Bot through gasped breaths. They’d asked Lucy-Bot to slow down, and she had, but only slightly. “Are you lost?” she asked.

“ _The schematics…_ ” Lucy-Bot began.

“Are primitive... we know,” Johnny finished for her. “What's your best guess?”

“ _I have no basis on which to calculate probabilities._ ” For the first time since coming to own the ship, Dutch heard a genuinely disconcerted tone in Lucy’s voice.

“Welcome to being human,” said Dutch with less snark than she had intended.

From a side passage there came a, “Halt!”The murderbots were back. “You'll return Unit 1 and submit to sterilization,” they said in unison.

“How are they back online? Romwell's dead,” Dutch asked in frustration and panic.

“Lucy, time to go.” Johnny said, already running.

Lucy aimed her weapon and took a shot at the murderbots. They each turned to opposing sides, the shot passing between them and hitting the wall.

“ _Yay!_ ” Lucy said.

* * *

 

D’avin removed the last of uncounted keys he had tried.

“If you ever find it, you'll still have to trade for it. Fair is fair,” said an improbably alive Romwell.

   D'avin turned to see the man stroll into the room. He was stunned. “And dead is dead!” he yelled. There was no time or point in wondering how the man was alive and in seemingly perfect health.D’avin rushed him, trying to tackle him to the ground.

They fought punch for kick, elbow for knee, fist for foot. The man could fight quite well for someone who had been dead just a while ago.

“Of course you've got the plasma. You're a Level Six!” D’avin spat at him, drawing back, calculating his next attack.

“Those trouble-makers your RAC sends around the J? Please.” Romwell gave him a face that said _wrong, try again_.

“Call it what you want, but those ‘visitors’ who came to your planet pumped you full of that green shit. That's why you're still alive.” D’avin circled the molecular scanner, trying to keep it between himself and Romwell.If he was a Level Six, he was deadly and capable of anything.

“They did no such thing.” Romwell slipped around the machine. “And while we're competing for who gets to be angrier, you certainly didn't know I was un-killable when you killed me after you fucked me.”

Romwell flew at D’avin.A foot to the chest, followed by a knee when he doubled over.All the wind was knocked out of D’avin when he hit the floor.

“The neural link triggered your old aggression and training. Let it wear off.” Romwell straitened up and brushed off his pants.

D’avin came at him again, full throttle.He had to take the man down before he tired, before the green gave him too much of an upper hand.Romwell repelled each kick and punch.

“Stop! I don't want to hurt you!” Romwell held D’avin’s fist after his punch failed to land, wrapping his other arm around D’avin’s neck.

D’avin took the split second opportunity when Romwell changed his grip and locked his own arm around the man’s neck.They held one another in the same grip. “If you're not a Level Six, why are you still alive?”

“I wasn’t spinning a tale when I said I knew Dutch was highborn. It’s written in her every glance. The people who came to my planet, the ones who came to conquer? My father was a Lord. So they took me and tortured me for information about my planet's defenses.

D’avin saw the man’s guard drop for a moment when he was revealing his story. Again, he took the opportunity to his advantage.He wrested himself from Romwell’s grip, spun around behind him and pinned him in a headlock. 

“You told them.” D’avin whispered in his ear. An accusation of treason.

“I told them everything,” he admitted. “Like you, other people paid for helping me, for loving me.”

No punch or kick the man had landed hurt anywhere near as much as that admission, and the undeniable parallel hanging in the air between the two.

“Do you hate yourself for it? Like me?” D’avin asked.

“Every day.” It was almost a sob.

“Than tell me the truth.”D’avin released the man and flung him away. 

To his credit, Romwell landed on his feet, adjusted his clothing and tried to regain a little dignity.

“I made it to an outlaw hospital ship. They healed me with hack-mod nanites, but the nanites worked a little too well. They've been working for centuries.”

Romwell suddenly looked stripped and vulnerable.

 _Amazing what a little truth will do to a person_ , thought D’avin. “How old are you?” he asked.

“Four hundred thirty-two,” Romwell replied.

The man didn’t look to be forty, let alone centuries old.

“I’m not interested in revenge,” Romwell continued. “That lost its luster a long time ago.”

“So you didn't come here to kill me?” said D’avin, unsure himself if he meant it as a question or a statement.

“I want to show you something.”


	12. Mangled Amends

Romwell led D’avin back to his rooms, the undeniable smell of sex still lingered in the air.

“People come to trade with me…” He went to a curio filled winter small objects and opened the glass door. “Every now and again I convince someone to stay, but the years pass... And so do they.” Romwell look to D’avin to be sure he’d understood the meaning of those words.

He did. If the man was centuries old, then the people he was talking about had died.

“This flask is the first thing I ever traded for. And still the best bargain. Solid platinum. The man who gave it to me was strong, like you, beautiful, like you.” He held the flask out to D’avin. It was exquisite, inlaid with a mosaic of gems in deep blue and green. “Take it, as a gift.”

D’avin reach for the flask and then hesitated. “What do you want?” he asked Romwell.

“To make amends,” he replied.

“By holding me hostage inside your asteroid?” D’avin could not hold the tone of disbelief from his voice.

“I think I'm being very pleasant to somebody who murdered me.” Romwell perfectly imitated D’avin’s incredulous tone.

“You started it.” D’avin threw back at him.

In D’avin’s earpiece Dutch said, “D’av, we have a situation.”

D’avin touched the reply spot behind his ear. “What's going on?”

“Romwell's bots are back online,” Dutch answered.

“We're holed up in the scanning room,” Johnny added. “But Lucy's out of ammo and all we've got to fight with is fruit and a Druellian hookah.”

D’avin turned back to Romwell. “So this was all bullshit to distract me while your bots go after John and Dutch?”

His shoulders drew up. “I told them to stand down when I woke up.”

“Wait, is that Romwell?” asked Johnny in D’avin’s ear.

“Long story,” D’avin replied, praying no one would ever call on him to tell it.

Romwell touched his temple, a look of confusion crossing his face. “My link's broken,” he said. “They're not responding.”

“They're stuck in kill-mode?” D’avin asked, the bottom falling out of his heart.

“We should go. Now,” said Romwell, dead serious.

D’avin tapped his earpiece again. “We're coming for you.” His attention back on Romwell, he said, “I swear if this is a trick, I'll kill you again.”

Romwell said, “If I help save your friends, will you at least consider staying? Make me a better man.”

That was low. Trying to use their shared guilt against him. It was also desperate. D'avin saw that too. This man had forgotten how to even be with other people on this asteroid, stuck doing penance for all eternity. Still, he said, “Not my job. No more trading. Either you do this because it's right, or stay out of my way.” D’avin got up in his face. “You know something about me almost no one in the universe knows. Fine, you know. That doesn’t mean you _know_ me. I’ve got more skeletons in my closet than a graveyard.You deal with yours; I’ll deal with mine. I’m not your muscle boy-toy assassin.”

Regardless, D’avin took the flask and tucked it into his pocket.


	13. I Love Lucy

In Johnny’s earpiece, his brother’s voice said, “Johnny, we're coming,” but it was hard to hear over the sound of metallic robot-fists punching at the scanner-room door.

Dutch hurriedly rummaged through the shelves in the room for something that could serve as a weapon. She found a heavy candlestick, the closest thing. “This is gonna suck,” she said.

Dutch, Johnny, and Lucy-Bot faced the metal door as it acquired an ever-increasing number of fist-shaped dents.Johnny saw from the corner of his eye that Lucy-Bot was staring at him.

He turned to her and asked, “What?”

She turned to him with robo-precision.She stroked his beard and said, “ _I’ve wondered for three point six years what that might feel like. Will you kiss me, John?_ ”

He almost laughed. “What? Why?”

“ _If you die, this may be my only chance to gather that sensory input,_ ” she responded.

“That's not a good reason,” Johnny said hesitantly.

“ _This may be your only chance to kiss a robot,_ ” she said, trying for something mildly akin to a sensual inflection.

“Well…” Jonny looked to Dutch for guidance.She put her hands up in a gesture of _don’t ask me_.

Johnny thought about it for just a second. Lucy had asked, so if consent was even an issue, she had made the first move. He leaned in to kiss her.

Dutch hadn’t thought it was going to go that way.She said, “Oh, Johnny, no.” Her face curled up in distaste.

The chaste peck that Johnny had given Lucy-Bot clearly did not meet her operational or technical standards.She pulled him back by the shirt, laying as passionate a kiss on Johnny as a robo-woman could.

“Lucy, are you making sparks?” Johnny asked.

Clearly she was.Her index finger was issuing a shower of incandescence.

“ _Aren't I supposed to?_ ” she said.

As much as he appreciated the visual metaphor, Johnny shook his head and said, “No.”

“ _Okay. Thank you for the data._ ”She turned and headed for the door.

“Lucy, don’t!” Johnny warned, suddenly more concerned for her as a person and less as a bot. “We've got nothing but fruit,” he said.

She pressed the button on the panel next to the door. “You've got me,” she replied with assurance.

Murderbot Blond entered and kicked Lucy-Bot in the stomach. Lucy-Bot recovered, grabbed Murderbot Brunette by the wrist, twisting her arm, giving a fierce chop to her shoulder.

“Run, John,” Lucy-Bot commanded, her voice brooking no argument.

Dutch grabbed Johnny’s arm, pulling him with her, refusing to let Lucy-Bot’s efforts go to waste.She pulled Johnny out the door.Johnny looked back to see the murderbots each take a point-blank shot at Lucy-Bot’s torso.

Lucy-Bot fell to her knees, lubricating fluid and coolant pouring from her mouth.

Dutch reached back for Johnny, glancing into the room, just as disturbed as Johnny by the sight of Lucy-Bot apparently dying to buy their escape. “John, let's go,” she said.


	14. Murderbots-R-Us

Dutch and Johnny unexpectedly converged with D’avin and Romwell as each pair arrived at the docking bay where Lucy -regular, fully fledged Lucy - was parked and waiting.

D’avin glanced at Johnny, then flicked his eyes away. Johnny knew that look. It was D’avin’s _don’t tell dad where I’ve been_ look.

“Oh, shit, we didn't open the hanger?” D’avin noted, scanning the sealed wall beyond Lucy.

“Lucy, blast the door,” Johnny said, but he was looking at Romwell who also avoided his glance. That was it. That was all he needed to know.He looked at the back of his brother’s head, knowing he had taken one for the team. Another thing to add to the list of unmentionable things that held the Jaqobis brothers apart. 

“ _I’m sorry, but I can't, John. I'm being hacked by the bitches who shot me,_ ” replied Lucy into all their earpieces.

“Wait, Lucy's alive?” D’avin asked.

“No,” said Johnny. “She was… She was an app. Hold those things off. I’ll override and make us an exit.”

“How can we stop your bots?” asked Dutch.

“I tried resetting them.” Romwell shrugged. “They're not responding.”

“Yeah, our ship robot may have screwed around with your neural link a little bit,” replied Dutch.

“Get on Lucy, I'll hold them off,” said D’avin.

Romwell shook his head. “They'll rip the ramp off your ship to get at you. And your pop-guns certainly won't stop them.”

“I think I know something that might,” D’avin said, his eyes unfocusing in introspection.

Johnny had climbed aboard Lucy, feeling instantly better in familiar surrounding, though he knew the trouble was unchanged.

“Hang in there, Lucy. I got your back,” he said to the ship.

“ _Hurry, John, they're coming for you,_ ” Lucy warned.

Outside in the hangar bay, D’avin struck a large chunk of photonic crystal from the wall. He turned to Romwell. “You have the plasma?”

“Seriously, you found it.?” said Dutch.

D’avin looked at her seriously. “It's what I came for.” If only she knew what it had cost.

D’avin poured the contents of the vial out onto the crystal in his hand. “Photonic crystals produce energy, right? If I can get enough speed going, this thing will make one hell of a grenade.”

Dutch knew he was referring to his ability to control the green.Romwell looked on in bemusement. As much as he knew about D’avin, he was unaware of his magic powers.

“You're using all of it?” Dutch complained.

“We've got one shot,” replied D’avin.He held the plasma coated crystal in his hand and willed it to rise.It floated up away from his hand and hovered in front of him.

“World of wonders,” said Romwell.

“I’m a wizard,” D’avin looked back at Romwell who eyed him adoringly. Dutch looked at the two of them and knew there was something there, but this wasn’t the time to ask what.

And, of course, the murderbots arrived right on cue.

“I’ll take care of them” D’avin thrust his hand, sending the crystal ricocheting wildly off walls, rock, Lucy.

“Good plan, dumbass,” yelled Johnny, descending the boarding ramp. “At that speed, the grenade is gonna’ nuke this asteroid.”

“Let's go,” said D’avin, ushering Romwell and Dutch forward to the ship. Dutch boarded, Romwell didn’t.

“My collection,” he said to D’avin. 

“They're just things, San. Your nanites won't heal this. Time to abandon ship. Come on.” D’avin grabbed his wrist and pulled him the boarding ramp.

“Lucy!” Johnny yelled from inside Lucy’s cargo hold.

“ _Almost there, John._ ” Her boarding ramp raised just as D’avin and Romwell made it aboard. The murderbots fired the slowly decreasing gap.

The four of them strapped into crash seats in the cargo hold, four-point safety harnesses clicking closed, lap harnessed tightened down.

“Lucy, shoot us out,” commanded Johnny.

“ _With pleasure, John._ ”

Lucy lifted and the explosion of the bay door being blasted away rattled through the ship walls.

 

* * *

 

“E.T.A. half an hour,” Johnny read from the control panel on Lucy’s bridge.

Dutch sighed, frustrated with the lack of communication. “I’m gonna go talk to D'avin.”

Johnny shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “Leave it alone.”

It wasn’t like Johnny to give Dutch orders. She wasn’t offended, just taken aback.

“Look, Johnny, I have a good idea…”

“You have **_no_** idea, Dutch.” That came out more causticly than he had intended. He tried again. “I know you think you know, and maybe you know about _now_ , but… There’s more to it. And it’s something not even I’ve found a way to bring up with him. When we were kids, he lost a friend. Someone important to him. I don't know all of it, but I know enough, and I know D'avin. It's going to have to be on his terms.  It always is.”

Dutch sat back down.  That was quite the speech from Johnny.

 _All right_ , she thought. _I’ll leave it alone… for now_.

 

* * *

 

   “How are you feeling?” D’avin wasn’t sure why he asked or why he cared. Maybe the question wasn’t really meant for Romwell. Maybe it was an internal question. He hadn’t thought of Brenn for years. He certainly hadn’t dealt with how it had all turned out, how much the event had sparked his eventual departure, leaving Johnny behind, which was a whole other bowl of guilt to deal with. He wasn’t remotely ready to give a name to his attraction to men. Brenn had been the first, but between Brenn and Romwell there had been others. Life in the army presents too many opportunities, too many stretches of boredom interspersed with brief moments of life-or-death decisions, for men not to look for comfort in one another’s arms.

“Honestly?” replied Romwell. “I feel free for the first time in a very long time. I... forgot what it was like to be a _part_ of a story. Not the one you told me, not your friend. This story, now. Your friends. Thank you for that.” 

“Dutch pulled some strings for you. She's gotten you a new identity and passage out of the Quad. We'll drop you off on our way home.” D’avin handed him a disposable display unit that contained the information.

“I… uh…” Romwell reached into a pocket and produced a vial of the green plasma. “I printed an extra just in case. I've heard rumors over the centuries that the invaders that came to my home world are making their way across the galaxy.”

“Toward the Quad?” D’avin asked.

Romwell shrugged. “I wish I knew more. But maybe this'll help you when they come.” He handed D’avin the vial. “You know, the curse of living a long life is that after a while, everyone and everything reminds you of something you've already done, someone you've already met, but you don't remind me of anyone. As you well know, not everyone has a happy ending, so be happy when you can.”


End file.
